Guardians of the Stars

Wealth

Wealth is an aspect related to wealth or economic status. It costs skill ranks if you want permanent financial stress boxes.

Most characters don’t have much disposable income, regardless of rank or status. They are more or less secure in their living—either from inherited or acquired wealth or by virtue of their employment, unless they have an aspect or consequence indicating otherwise—but they are typically without large reserves of liquidity. However, there do exist characters of great wealth, either old-money nobility or nouveau riche arrivistes.

To represent great wealth, a PC can gain ranks in Wealth. Resources gives wealth as a bonus, with 1 point of wealth for every two ranks of Resources. However, Wealth is not used as a normal skill. Instead, each rank in Wealth adds one financial stress box with a value equal to the rank just taken. These boxes can be marked to do one of two things: absorb shifts of damage equal to the value of the box, or add a bonus to an action using another skill, with a rank equal to or less than Wealth, equal to the value of the box, to a maximum of +3. In both cases, the use of wealth must be appropriate for the circumstances, where bringing economic resources to bear on a problem, situation, or action would help produce a satisfying outcome.

Wealth is fungible in a way that other parts of a character are not. A character can give a financial stress box to another character, who then “owns” it. Once it is used, the character who first owned the financial stress box can restore it by using an overcome action, usually Business, possibly Resources or Gamble, or perhaps even something further afield like Perform or Lore under the right conditions. This action has passive opposition equal to the value of the financial stress box to be restored.

Even a character without Wealth can try to raise money by rolling an action to gain some temporary wealth: an aspect reflecting the nature of the financial resource (such as Selling the Family Jewels) and a financial stress box. Succeeding gives a 2-point financial stress box, while succeeding with style gives a 3-point box. The passive opposition to this roll should be at least Good (+3), possibly higher, since making money is hard.

These rules make characters without Wealth more vulnerable to economic pressure or financial adversity than characters with Wealth. In such cases, the pressure or adversity will be experienced as either disadvantageous aspects or as attacks inflicting mental stress.